


The Theme of Group 1

by eggyolkjellyfish



Category: Shin Sekai Yori | From the New World
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-16 23:23:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15448149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggyolkjellyfish/pseuds/eggyolkjellyfish
Summary: About the relationships between the 5 members of Group 1 from different perspectives of each member;





	1. The Theme of Shun and Saki

A girl with brown hair and eyes commonly found, who's quick to get hurt and give up, who speaks and acts with no decorum and only forthrightness; A very normal girl; But they did say that normal was the hardest thing to be, and yet the standard at which something is "normal" seems to be on a special plane of its own. That girl living by herself in her plane of normalcy was the girl who was most special to me. That girl was Saki.

It wasn't that she wasn't in awe of me, or treated me the same as all others. I feel as though the others expected me to find someone who was extraordinary, or someone they thought could “match” me. But like all love, like all normal ways people fall in love, I did inexplicably fall in love with her.

The girl who was normal, normal in the way that the "normal" protagonists of the stories in the school library were, taking heroic action, going on an endless journey just to follow their loved ones chosen by a higher power- maybe good, or maybe evil. She made me realize that the normal we all think of is not something commonplace but is a state of pursuing contentment and happiness- the very things we all live for.

As humans in this flawed world, no reaction to a situation is same enough with others to be called common or completely efficient. As humans in this flawed world, we give up the contentment and happiness we know, ironically by trying to reach things that we think, rather than know would make us satisfied. Saki came close to that normal- trying to keep what would make her content and happy and trying to achieve that best in circumstances given to her. But she was able to achieve that brand of normalcy unlike others by knowing what made her happy exactly instead of cooking up some great dream for herself thinking it would satisfy her because others would look up to her.

For someone like me, who could hardly recover from the horrible things I saw and heard but suffered to know I could not fix it despite the talents everyone said I had, a girl trying to save what made her content and happy at the very least was a small miracle.

Perhaps if I was more like her, I wouldn’t have turned out this way. But perhaps then, I would have suffered the loss of her affection for me as something I am not.

To this day, I still pray for her to keep that contentment and happiness she protects so fiercely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: The title for each chapter is inspired by the title of three chapters from "Boku wa Onna no Ko" by Takako Shimura (see: "The Theme of Akemi ver. Haruo").


	2. The Theme of Satoru and Shun

There’s an old saying I stumbled on while dropping by the library that Saki’s mother used to work for. It said, “Men never forget their first love, while women want to find their last love.” My last love is Saki. A member of the Ethics Committee, the hero who defeated the fiend a decade ago, the person who saved my life, my childhood friend, wife, and the mother of our child; That’s the kind of person Saki is to me- I’ll never have any chance to forget her for she’s the last person I’ll ever love. But Shun- I’ll never have another chance to forget you either for you were the first person I ever loved. 

I did forget you for a while. The first time I made love with Saki, I was wishing that it was you under me, looking at me with tenderness rather than the desparatation in Saki’s eyes- but then I realized in horror that I have no idea what your eyes look like. Before, I was secretly hoping that we’d somehow be able to grow old living with each other for the rest of our lives. It would probably not have been able to happen, knowing the town’s need for us to bear children. 

But I know some of the men in town go look for other men despite having wives themselves- they seek out old lovers and make new ones as well. The women are no exception either, but when they come back home, husband and wife embrace as though they’re the only other people in this world. I’ve never done that to Saki, and Saki has no one to do that kind of thing with after Maria left this world. But sometimes I wonder what would have happened between us three- Saki, you, and me- if you had never become a karma demon.

Maybe it would’ve been best, if unorthodox, if we three- no, all five of Group One had lived together, sharing partners, children, and a home. It sounds childish of me, I’ll admit. You’d find it funny that someone as possessive as me could think of sharing you to someone else. But now that I love Saki, and I remember I love you, it’s become a strong desire for me- one that I haven’t told even Saki. Perhaps it’s because I know it can never happen now that I desire it all the more. 

You’ve always been a part of my life. I’ve known you since we met in Harmony School. At first, I only ever had thoughts of competing against you and winning. Of course I was drawn to your calm aura and intelligence beyond our years. But I’ll admit that what I wanted more than anything else was to somehow win you. I’m a competitive person by nature. I loved provoking Saki, and I loved teasing Maria, too. It’s a part of expressing my closeness with those I care for, distinguishing them from others through establishing our connection, and through that the assurance that I’d be the only one to both protect and provoke them and no one else. I knew I could always count on Saki to want to be with me, because she could be protected by me to some extent and she reciprocated it. But you, Shun, were beyond needing my protection and care, for you were strong enough and stubborn enough to believe you could accomplish things alone. As a result, what I really wanted the whole time was not to win over you, but to win you over. 

So I was overjoyed when you agreed to go out with me. I wanted to show you how much I could care for you. How much I could protect and stand by you; The time we spent together was a sort of triumph for me- finally I had assurance that you wanted to be close to me too, and I could do it the way I knew how best. I suppose because of that exhilaration, I neglected the others who I thought I’d already won over. I am quite selfish, really. So when you became a karma demon, and I almost entirely forgot you- I was swept with immense pain that even i didn’t understand. I had failed to protect you after all. I had failed to win you over. I had failed to keep you by my side. 

I didn’t even go to see you like Saki did- yes, she told me she went to see you the night the Earth swallowed you up. Strangely, I felt both jealousy, pain, and immense love towards Saki for doing that. Jealousy because I wished that were me, pain because it should have been me, and love for Saki for her courage to do that. 

When I first made love to Saki I was thinking of you, my first love who disappeared not so long ago. But the day of the “fiend’s” death, when you reappeared in front of Saki’s eyes, even as she told me she saw you, all I could think of was how relieved I was that Saki was here in front of me. That’s when I knew- there’d be no more people I love after Saki. 

Of course, I thought of you after, and I think of you now. After the chaos of rounding up the queerats and rebuilding the town, and things became peaceful, the gravity of Saki’s vision of you crashed on me carrying the memories of you I’d so long forgotten. When I told her I remember you entirely again, Saki and I both silently held each others’ hands. Not looking at each other, but you who left us both alone so long ago; 

Like this, my first and last love intermingle, not into one person, but as one feeling- a strong love, appreciation, and regret for all things past. The only difference? I have no hope for you and I as I have hope for Saki and my future for you are long gone. I won’t let myself be hung up on the past and miss seeing the present while looking back for a fading image.

If the baby Saki and I are having is a girl, we’ll name her Maria. If it’s a boy, we’ll name him Shun. But even if we have a daughter, I won’t forget you, or your name. Because you’re the first person I’ve ever loved so deeply, Shun. And there is nothing that can change that;


	3. The Theme of Mamoru and Satoru

How could you do it? I always wondered. How could you be so bold? 

I could understand why everyone loved Shun. He was perceptive and intelligent, and also kind and gentle. But he could also be firm and cunning when he absolutely had to. Everyone admired him, but was a little too awed by him to approach him. As his friend, I admired him comfortably, and I could see Saki admired him more than anyone else. Even though she had Maria.

But I could still understand why Maria liked Saki. She was average, like me. But unlike me, she went through with the things she said she’d do even if she was afraid. I knew it was only a matter of swallowing that fear down as best as you can, just enough to taste it, but not let it consume you and letting it rise again but mingled with the taste of relief rather than sickly bile, once the danger was over. I could never do that, but Saki could. 

Everyone understands why I loved Maria. She was everything I’m not- exciting, mesmerizing, captivating, assured, intelligent, and brave. She went with me to school every morning, and she was always the first person to come to me when I was upset. She was sometimes the only person to come to me during those times. Her embrace is where I always felt the most at ease, like the mother’s embrace I never had. Even though I was like this, she still cared to pull me into her shining world each time. 

But you.

I could never understand you. 

How can you be so carefree? How can you tease without the fear of losing them or saying something too vapid? How do you continue even after being discouraged? How do you chase after someone with such persistence, only by the power of your love for them? How do you press forward when you feel afraid, and your legs are shaking and your vision is blurring? How do you gain what you want? How do you gain the others’ undying love? How do you be a part of something so thoroughly without any doubt and become a missing part of the puzzle when you are gone? 

In the end, you lived. In the end, someone loved you so much that they took a chance and saved your life. Maria took a chance for me. But she couldn’t save my life, and I couldn’t save hers. Maybe if I was more like you, we could have both lived. Maybe I could’ve held Maria in my arms like you held Saki and not just leaned against her like the burden I am. Maybe I could’ve held my child and seen her grown up happy and bright. Maybe so many people wouldn’t have died…

But my regrets are useless after my life is over. So I’ll repent instead. I’ll protect your Maria from the other side in repentance for the fact that I couldn’t protect mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes:  
> 1\. “Your Maria” who Mamoru tells Satoru he’ll protect refers to Saki and Satoru’s unborn child (in the anime/novel the gender of the child’s unknown but I’d like to headcanon that it’s a daughter ;-;).  
> 2\. We didn’t see much connections happen between the boys of Group 1 and Mamoru so I thought I’d write it from Mamoru’s point of view since we didn’t get much of his perspective/role outside of his relation to Maria.


	4. The Theme of Maria and Mamoru

There were a few times when I regretted choosing him. Mamoru, that is. Whenever he touched me, I closed my eyes and guiltily thought about how much more pleasant this would be if it were with Saki. When I thought like that, I’d feel so guilty for betraying Mamoru and miss Saki so badly that he’d have to stop and just hold me for I felt too overwhelmed to continue. Little did he know, it felt even worse, because then I knew that he knew it was almost never him that I thought of when we tried to make love. The few times I thought of him when he touched me, was when we were both so starved of touch that we became nearly delirious and could only think of feeling closeness with another living being in this cold, isolated world we were in. 

Was pity the only emotion I felt for Mamoru? No, it wasn’t. I genuinely appreciated him. He was a kind, gentle soul. He really was. He hadn’t an ounce of true cruelty in him- just a dogged loyalty and deep insecurity. I’d been with him every single day since I met him at Sage Academy. Every day I’d see his him tremble with strain from anxiety and fear that he internalized, for he was too considerate to even speak to his father, a kind man who worried for his only son immensely. I’d hold him in my arms, and felt as though I was protecting a delicate porcelain doll too fragile to be outside of his glass box. 

But the fact remains that I did not love him the same way I did Saki. When we were together in Kamisu 66, even as I cared for him, I could not make myself touch him as a lover would. I loved him deeply as a friend, and maybe even in the way one looks at a child in need of protection and care. I’ve always wanted a child, and perhaps I (ironically) childishly thought of Mamoru as being something like that to me. That was the only way I could, and ever did see him. 

But when circumstances changed, and I could not stay in the town anymore, I chose to have a child someday even if it was with him. If I had to leave both the village and Saki, couldn’t that be the one thing I could give to myself? Yet ironically when we did have a child together, it wasn’t either of our will or doing. 

When I look back at the time I spent being treated as livestock like their queens by the queerats who captured and lobotomized Mamoru and I, I wonder perhaps it would have been a better choice to have just ended both our lives the moment they captured us. Or perhaps if I had never met Mamoru, if he had never been put in Group One, then I would never have known him, then things may have turned out better. Or perhaps if I had never been born to begin with, and Mamoru had never met me and just ran away on his own outside the Holy Barrier. Or perhaps if Mamoru had been killed by a copycat and Saki and I were to run away from Kamisu 66 and lived our lives in the wild alone together…

I mustn’t think like that. Saki has grown up into a wonderful person. She’s left me behind a long time ago though I am grateful she still thinks of me enough to name her child after me. I sometimes illogically wish that that child were Saki and mine. If somehow, inexplicably, Saki and I had a child, would she have flaming red hair like me? Or would she have Saki’s lovely brown eyes? Or maybe she would have both. 

Isn’t it strange how when two people have a child together, they look as though it’s the two people melded together into one? Like a symbol of their love and life together; Perhaps Mamoru and my child turned out the way she did, hurting and killing so many people, because I didn’t really love him, and she became warped as a result of it? That’s a silly way to think, but I am filled with deep sadness and rage when I think of how my child didn’t even know throughout her whole, brief life that she was human. It’s even more heart wrenching when I think of how gentle and kind she would’ve turned out to be if she had known Mamoru as her father, and how much Saki and Satoru would’ve loved her too. 

But those were the choices I made and the consequences that happened as a result of it. Even though I put up a front of bravery, I was always wanting to run away inside. That’s why I ran away with Mamoru who was just as afraid as I was, and abandoned Saki and Satoru, who were the truly courageous ones. If I had not run away from the things I feared again, then countless people in the town may have been saved, and I would not have had to lose Saki. If I had known that Mamoru was going to die anyways, and that he would meet a worse fate if I tried to save him… then I could’ve spent the rest of my life by Saki’s side. 

I didn’t ruminate and ramble so much when I was alive. But now that I am not, it seems all my doubts rise to the surface and I can no longer put up a front of bravery. For the sake of myself when I was alive, I must put up a front again, or I feel I may lose myself. I don’t regret following Mamoru outside the Holy Barrier. Saki had many people she could rely on and trust. Mamoru had no one but me. And I did love Mamoru very much; I still do. And what happened with the queerats with my child may have happened later on in the future if humankind kept doing what we did to them. Yes, that’s all it is. 

Saki is having a daughter, a daughter named after me. Even though I feel a bit sad about not being able to see her little Maria grow up, I feel relatively content knowing that Saki and Satoru at least have found a fulfilling future for themselves. To think that the two who fought so much when we were kids would fall in love and get married! If a younger Saki were to hear that she would work herself into a fit! 

Mamoru and I are the ones to abandoned the town, but it seems in the end that the town abandoned us to the flow of time and have forgotten us. It’s what I chose so I must bear with the sadness. I do not regret choosing Mamoru, even though I wished it was Saki by my side many times, because he was kind, kinder than anyone else I’ve ever known. I do not regret giving in to the queerats after my long struggle and having to die giving birth to the one proof that Mamoru and I existed in this world. I do not regret having ever loved Saki, having ever loved Mamoru, or having ever been born. I do not regret it, because in the aftermath of it all, at least Saki and Satoru are still alive, and they make each other happy. The only hope I have left now is that Saki and Satoru will continue to lead a happy life for Mamoru and I to watch over, and that their little Maria will grow up to live with no regrets of her own. 

Those are my completely honest desires.


	5. The Theme of Saki and Maria

Every year when a new season begins, I think of a certain girl.

When autumn begins, I see the the image of a young girl’s serious face. She’s looking down in deep concentration, hands sifting through warm colored leaves in hues of reds, oranges, and browns. She’s looking for acorns in a game we’ve made up- whoever finds the biggest acorn wins. The hair that frames her face comes teasingly close to the colors of the leaves she’s digging through, a deep red that not even nature in its element can match. I’m deep in concentration too, impatiently batting away the leaves that fall on top of the patch of ground I’ve cleared. But time to time, I cast fleeting glances at the girl’s pretty face, and feel my face grow warm for a reason I don’t yet understand very well. I can sense her doing the same as soon as I look down, and everywhere I sense her gaze landing on feels like it’s burning but not in an unpleasant way. But then I shout in jubilation when I find an acorn, only to pout when she gleefully shows me hers, and whatever moment we had is broken. 

When winter begins, I see the image of a young girl from behind with her flaming red hair all the more prominent against the completely white backdrop. I run towards her laughing and shouting her name, my footsteps blurring the ones she’s already made on the ground. As she turns around I jump towards her with my arms outstretched and my weight knocks both of us into the snow. I quickly roll off of her, and my uncovered head hits the ground with an ice cold jolt. But I take no notice of the pain and turn to look at her to see if she’s hurt. She holds my gaze seriously, then makes a face that makes me burst into laughter. We both laugh till we have to let go of each others’ hands that we weren’t aware we were holding, to hold our aching sides.

When spring begins, I see the image of the same young girl but a few years back. In art class we had learned that green and red were complementary colors. The only reason I can still remember that is because of the memory of red hair flowing in the gentle spring breeze over a field of soft green, the color of newly grown grass. She walked above me on the pavement as I looked up at her in awe from the bottom the small slope I was standing. Her eyes were the color of the stream in summer, glittering blue-green, and her face with the small but confident smile playing on it with the self assured walk made my heart skip a beat. The same color caught my eye as I first walked the path to Harmony School, and I saw the flutter of red hair intermingled with the green leaves falling from the trees, as the wind plucked them off one by one to dance over the heads of the new students. I had no idea back then that that shade of red would be the color signalling comfort for me for years to come. 

When summer begins, I see the girl who was always by my side for a decade, scooping goldfish out of a basin of water. The way her face goes from elation to gloom to excitement within a matter of seconds as the fish tease her by coming close then running away makes me laugh. and I’m too amused by her to scoop any goldfish at all. But she does somehow catch two and she gives one to me, and when I protest she just smiles. When I buy us cotton candy after, sharing one between ourselves, she leans over and kisses me, her lips and the cotton candy combined making it taste even sweeter than usual. When Satoru comes and joins us to see the fireworks, she and I hold hands and point out shapes in the pretty lights while Satoru climbs onto a boulder to see a bit better. And when it’s all over, she leans half asleep on my shoulder while Satoru and I bicker about who’s doing the most work to steer the boat back to our homes. 

But after the year she left, and the year the queerats attacked, these images have turned more bitter than sweet, and some entirely heart-wrenching.

Seeing autumn leaves, especially the dark red of Japanese maples, make my eyes sting thinking of the girl who used to gather the pretty looking leaves and shiny acorns with me every autumn, even as teenagers.   
Snow in the winter only makes my heart break for in my memory, I see the young girl from behind, so small, though I didn’t notice back then, sadness intermingled now knowing that someday we’ll have to say goodbye. My receding form from her line of sight during the winter of our sixteenth year becomes a farewell rather than an incentive to catch up and greet me.   
The green of Spring brings both new hope at a new year, a new chance to right old wrongs, but it also makes me whirl around suddenly even in the middle of a road whenever I see a flash of red, only to realize with a sinking heart that it’s not her. 

Summer is always the worst. The warmth and exhilaration of the Summer Festival is marred by the sights I saw a decade ago, the bone chilling after knowledge that the warmth I felt that day was a cover for the biggest tragedy to happen in the recent years of Kamisu 66.   
The laughter and excited shouts from everyone at the festival turn warped as the image of the queerats in monster costumes innocuously handing out poisons to these exhilarated people come into mind. The red haired girl sitting by my side, holding hands and laughing at every little thing because we’re so happy, overlaps with the image of another red haired girl running further and further away from me in the night as people around me collapse and froth at the mouth. The girl who I came home together in the boats at night after the festival suddenly becomes a terrifying demon who’s hearing my every rasping breath, following me down the river, fearful that she could rip me to shreds at any moment. 

The same innocent smile on Maria’s face that I’ve seen and loved a million times becomes suddenly splattered with blood. And her beautiful blue-green eyes are unnaturally wide and dancing with mirth as the sounds of Kaburagi Shisei’s pain filled screams and the townspeople’s’ fearful shouts reverberate in the air; 

The Maria that I loved was tantalizing, yet she gave me such a comfortable feeling just being near her at the same time. It was reassurance and excitement at the same time. It was the feeling of being at home, but your home was a ship that sailed the seven seas, that brings you treasures and mesmerizing sights everywhere. Even as I looked towards Shun, it was always Maria’s reassuring grasp of my hand that brought me down to Earth and gave me a constant feeling of comfort. 

To see someone who looks exactly like the Maria of my dreams, but in the nightmare that was my situation back then was unnerving beyond all explanation. I reached my hand out to Maria’s daughter, and hoped she would see she was human, my one and only link to my most cherished friend and lover. But all that could be done in the end was to clutch at my chest with a balled up fist, hyperventilating as the child died right before my eyes, never having known how precious she could have been to me had she been born in the town. 

As Autumn comes again, I see the orange leaves of the Japanese maple trees grow red at the tips. At that, I’m suddenly filled with the dizzying figures of two girls with flaming red hair, one facing me from afar, and one’s back towards me overlapped together. I’m unsure if she is coming towards me or running away from me. I reach out to her, hoping either one will catch my hand. 

But the hand that slips into mind is a hand even smaller than Maria or her daughter’s. I look down and I see my daughter looking up to me with a curious look. In her other hand is a Japanese maple leaf, a red darker than the color of the setting sun. Before I can see the confusing double figured girl, I shake my head a little and squeeze my daughter, Maria’s hand. Then I myself be taken back into the present strewn with red colored leaves to make new and different memories with another Maria. This time, one who I pray will find lifelong happiness with someone who loves her as much as a certain girl did for me so very long ago.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact: The title for each chapter is inspired by the title of three chapters from "Boku wa Onna no Ko" by Takako Shimura (see: "The Theme of Akemi ver. Haruo").


End file.
